Avoiding melee attacks seems nigh impossible. Wasnt before.

[[ARA] Panzergott]

Any Alpha players or previous beta people confirm their experience is similar to mine? I remember being able to consistently strafe and avoid melee attacks from the dogs and Robots. However now their swing hitboxes are so massive and disjointed its seems impossible.

Im not sure if this is intentional to make the game harder or if its unintentional. Either way im not a fan. Robots in particular hitting you somehow while you're behind and to the side of them and then essentially stunlocking you. It just feels really clunky. I get slower players (higher equip load) argueably should have this happen. That or make it really hard to simply dodge. If im rolling around with no armor im somehow still not quick enough to strafe anything.

[Vendymion]

even with sheild, I still take damage and stunt, robot is really something else. But it usually goes down after 30 ish pencil bolts. I can sometime manage to dodge it if it doesn't use the dmc stinger move by pre-swing it and immediately raise shield and fall back

[[ARA] Panzergott]

Originally posted by DontNut:

even with sheild, I still take damage and stunt, robot is really something else. But it usually goes down after 30 ish pencil bolts. I can sometime manage to dodge it if it doesn't use the dmc stinger move by pre-swing it and immediately raise shield and fall back

I just set up the big trap saw blade and crouch slightly out of range wacking it with a hammer. Drops it in maybe 8-10 seconds.

Still it seems you're kinda confirming what im afraid of. This is in single player too. So no lag excuses. Even with 0 ping the disjoint is large enough to make avoiding attacks impossible.

[Offlcer_Sam]

The robots were annoying to smack in the demo as well, usually being able to use an electrified charge attack at point blank. The best way is to use traps or the electrified water on the second floor (up the elevator) to farm for CPUs. But I'm pretty sure an armored walking vending machine wouldn't be easy to melee attack in general.

The dog things are a bit hard to dodge in general, as when they're right on you they will chomp decently hard. Usually a good way to fight them is by using obstacles to your advantage, if you can. Or create distance so it uses it's charge attack to stun itself on a wall.

I think the melee tree should include a skill to increase chances of stunlocking cause the dogs are bit annoying to deal with.

[[ARA] Panzergott]

Originally posted by Offlcer_Sam:

The robots were annoying to smack in the demo as well, usually being able to use an electrified charge attack at point blank. The best way is to use traps or the electrified water on the second floor (up the elevator) to farm for CPUs. But I'm pretty sure an armored walking vending machine wouldn't be easy to melee attack in general.

The dog things are a bit hard to dodge in general, as when they're right on you they will chomp decently hard. Usually a good way to fight them is by using obstacles to your advantage, if you can. Or create distance so it uses it's charge attack to stun itself on a wall.

I think the melee tree should include a skill to increase chances of stunlocking cause the dogs are bit annoying to deal with.

Blunt Charge attack. With the Pipe Club. A couple well aimed head shots kill the dogs in like 2-3 swings.

That or use Doors. Just door kick things into a bloody smear. Works even for robots.

[MechWarden]

In the second play test and demo it felt like the combat as pretty sluggish, and even in this version it is hard to really avoid damage.

After playing Tunic, Darktide, and just recently Hyperlight Drifter, it feels a bit bad to take so many hits early on.

If this is intentional, and I can kind of see how it could be because brainy desk jockeys make for poor soldiers, then I really wish the intention was better conveyed to the player. Shield animations feel like the worst offenders, because after being so used to something responsive, only to have a painful delay or it just not seeming to work. If the animations on that were tweaked to better show that, I'd be less put of by it.

[[ARA] Panzergott]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

In the second play test and demo it felt like the combat as pretty sluggish, and even in this version it is hard to really avoid damage.

After playing Tunic, Darktide, and just recently Hyperlight Drifter, it feels a bit bad to take so many hits early on.

If this is intentional, and I can kind of see how it could be because brainy desk jockeys make for poor soldiers, then I really wish the intention was better conveyed to the player. Shield animations feel like the worst offenders, because after being so used to something responsive, only to have a painful delay or it just not seeming to work. If the animations on that were tweaked to better show that, I'd be less put of by it.

My problem with the shield is how little it does compared the alternatives. You lose out on MASSIVE damage potential or you know ranged options. Swing like 20 times while blocking a bunch or just hit some hard charged melee hits and end the creature in a couple hits.

Sure you can prevent hits but like just straight up killing the thing with harder hits (that can also stagger) much faster seems to be more consistent.

[Trellek]

I'm pretty sure that part of the problem is that enemies have more health. It's not just that a Peccary can sit on top of you and abuse you to death, though that's incredibly frustrating. It's that they have a ridiculous amount of health and attack with the single-minded intensity of a Pinkie from the original Doom games.

Pair that with the fact that the Peccary recovers completely instantly from their charge attack and they, in particular, feel really rough to fight right now.

And that's without even getting into the BS that is the soldiers at the moment; half a dozen mags from the pistol, or an even dozen hits from the pipe pistol, or somewhere in the middle of that for the EM shotgun thing... No matter how you look at it, the human enemies of Manufacturing West are an absolute chore to fight.

[KDR_11k]

Originally posted by Trellek:

I'm pretty sure that part of the problem is that enemies have more health. It's not just that a Peccary can sit on top of you and abuse you to death, though that's incredibly frustrating. It's that they have a ridiculous amount of health and attack with the single-minded intensity of a Pinkie from the original Doom games.

Pair that with the fact that the Peccary recovers completely instantly from their charge attack and they, in particular, feel really rough to fight right now.

And that's without even getting into the BS that is the soldiers at the moment; half a dozen mags from the pistol, or an even dozen hits from the pipe pistol, or somewhere in the middle of that for the EM shotgun thing... No matter how you look at it, the human enemies of Manufacturing West are an absolute chore to fight.

That doesn't really match my experience, 2-3 headshots with the pistol and the shotgun will sometimes even oneshot. Peccaries die from 2-3 crossbow hits to the head or 1 shot from the pistol. I think most melee weapons take too many hits, especially if you don't have many levels on them and thus have a hard time gaining more experience.

The security bots are still tanks with those weapons though, I usually place down a trip wire mine and a shock plate near one of their spawners and repeatedly kite the bot into those traps. Three mine loads and bit of shocking will take the bot down.

[Trellek]

Originally posted by KDR_11k:

That doesn't really match my experience, 2-3 headshots with the pistol and the shotgun will sometimes even oneshot. Peccaries die from 2-3 crossbow hits to the head or 1 shot from the pistol. I think most melee weapons take too many hits, especially if you don't have many levels on them and thus have a hard time gaining more experience.

The security bots are still tanks with those weapons though, I usually place down a trip wire mine and a shock plate near one of their spawners and repeatedly kite the bot into those traps. Three mine loads and bit of shocking will take the bot down.

So, with pretty much any ranged weapon, Peccaries become largely nuisance enemies. Three to four crossbow hits to the body, center-mass, will kill a Peccary. In melee however, they are absolute monsters and the only saving grace is that they don't get any health back when they kill you. In particular, the fact that they can finish their explosive charge and literally the very next frame spin around and resume attacking makes them a serious issue in melee. Once you pick up that nifty netgun pretty much all the Anteverse 2 enemies become a snooze-fest. Well, except Pests, but that's what the vacuum's for.

However, if you don't have the fine coordination needed for accurately landing headshots at range while your character's aim-dot sways around like they're drunk and both their arms are broken the Order enemies have way too bloody much health. They're not fun to fight, they're tedious and annoying. They respawn much too fast for the resource expenditure needed to kill them and their drops are middling to garbage, with the only valuable item being the one you can trade in at the FORGE for steel cable.

This is not helped by the Pipe Pistol and EM shotgun thing's fire-rate issues, which make precision shooting under pressure an absolute chore. Particularly in the areas with a sniper on overwatch.

Also, three well-placed trip-mines at once should damned near insta-kill the regular security bots. Otherwise, just toss a couple shock traps on their patrol route and let them suicide to death on them. The bots are really only a threat to the player if one is silly enough to go mano y mano with them.

[Dawnseer]

Bots is dismantled easily be traps, or ranged. Or literally any corner obstacle that will get their pathfinding glitched.

As for the peccaries. Craft a net. Throw a net. Beat it to death free of harm.

[[ARA] Panzergott]

Originally posted by Trellek:

Originally posted by KDR_11k:

That doesn't really match my experience, 2-3 headshots with the pistol and the shotgun will sometimes even oneshot. Peccaries die from 2-3 crossbow hits to the head or 1 shot from the pistol. I think most melee weapons take too many hits, especially if you don't have many levels on them and thus have a hard time gaining more experience.

The security bots are still tanks with those weapons though, I usually place down a trip wire mine and a shock plate near one of their spawners and repeatedly kite the bot into those traps. Three mine loads and bit of shocking will take the bot down.

So, with pretty much any ranged weapon, Peccaries become largely nuisance enemies. Three to four crossbow hits to the body, center-mass, will kill a Peccary. In melee however, they are absolute monsters and the only saving grace is that they don't get any health back when they kill you. In particular, the fact that they can finish their explosive charge and literally the very next frame spin around and resume attacking makes them a serious issue in melee. Once you pick up that nifty netgun pretty much all the Anteverse 2 enemies become a snooze-fest. Well, except Pests, but that's what the vacuum's for.

However, if you don't have the fine coordination needed for accurately landing headshots at range while your character's aim-dot sways around like they're drunk and both their arms are broken the Order enemies have way too bloody much health. They're not fun to fight, they're tedious and annoying. They respawn much too fast for the resource expenditure needed to kill them and their drops are middling to garbage, with the only valuable item being the one you can trade in at the FORGE for steel cable.

This is not helped by the Pipe Pistol and EM shotgun thing's fire-rate issues, which make precision shooting under pressure an absolute chore. Particularly in the areas with a sniper on overwatch.

Also, three well-placed trip-mines at once should damned near insta-kill the regular security bots. Otherwise, just toss a couple shock traps on their patrol route and let them suicide to death on them. The bots are really only a threat to the player if one is silly enough to go mano y mano with them.

Blunt Charged attack with a Pipe Club in the head. Kills in 2 swings. 1 or 2 more if you miss the head.

The next tier Blunt with the fire added to it can one shot in the head. Peccarys im refering to of course.

Really any melee attack that isnt a Blunt charged does no damage. Trying to level STR weapons to level 8 seems useful. I STILL havent hit the level to finally use the weapons properly.

[DeadBrain]

Originally posted by Dawnseer:

Bots is dismantled easily be traps, or ranged. Or literally any corner obstacle that will get their pathfinding glitched.

As for the peccaries. Craft a net. Throw a net. Beat it to death free of harm.

I can confirm this - play smart people, nets are basically free and you craft a net launcher later too. Placing a few shock traps in an area will let you stunlock the bot fairly often as long as you kite him around them too, they recharge fairly quickly.

Had an easier time dodging enemies using the spear too, so it's worth looking into that if you find dodging them too hard.

It gets easier as you level up too, and since most of the enemies people are talking about are from the first area, I assume they are still in the lower ranks of their skills - keep at it and it'll get easier. Just remember you're not supposed to be a slayer of monsters from the get-go.

[MechWarden]

Assuming the combat hasn't changed much since the demo, I can say that the spear was really good when I used it. Been going with blunt weapons and having a harder time. That reach with the spear can make a big difference.

[Blorem]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

In the second play test and demo it felt like the combat as pretty sluggish, and even in this version it is hard to really avoid damage.

After playing Tunic, Darktide, and just recently Hyperlight Drifter, it feels a bit bad to take so many hits early on.

If this is intentional, and I can kind of see how it could be because brainy desk jockeys make for poor soldiers, then I really wish the intention was better conveyed to the player. Shield animations feel like the worst offenders, because after being so used to something responsive, only to have a painful delay or it just not seeming to work. If the animations on that were tweaked to better show that, I'd be less put of by it.

I think it's intentional since how else are you gonna build up your Fortitude stat? We just got to manufacturing and I literally just got Fortitude 1 from how little I have been getting hit. I personally haven't had the problem with getting hit so much, outside of fighting the robot in melee which seems like a bad idea in general

[Xuhybrid]

Same here. Robots and dogs could be handled with strafing but now you get hit no matter what. This means you need traps or nets to take these on.